Crickets | Blind Date 5 of 31

Suzi needs a date. Well actually, based on the bet she just made with her two bestfriends, she needs thirty-one dates. Thirty one blind dates to be exact. This time, Suzi meets a blind date for lunch at a hip restaurant, but someone else catches her eye.

This one-shot is part of the 31 Blind Dates anthology from more than two dozen Wattpad writers including members of the Stars program, published authors, Ambassadors and Wattys winners. At the end of each story, you will find the link to the next chapter in the collection. Special thanks to rskovach for putting this all together.

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Crickets

She was stunning. It poured out of her in an effervescence that crested and snapped with every step. She made Suzi want to take up writing poetry to put her into words. It didn't matter that that's a cliché, because there was no time for thinking. Suzi could only feel the thump of her heart in her head. The way this woman carried herself into the room and toward Suzi turned that trough of vacant tables in that overhyped restaurant with the threadbare menus into something that not even those planted five-star Yelp reviews could bullshit. Something real. Something timeless. An instant familiarity.

Of course, it wouldn't be the first time her eyesight narrowed into tunnel vision, sending her balance spinning and hands gripping the sides of the tabletop. Good thing Suzi remained seated at the table. She'd been fooled before by the intoxicant of instant attraction. But something felt different in that shared glance, as if they'd known each other for longer than either had been alive.

"Hello. Are you Suzi?" the woman said as she cleared the last few feet to Suzi's table. They faced each other alone in that part of the restaurant.

Suzi chose not to speak. She just nodded with a dry throat. Reaching for the obligatory glass of water on the table was out of the question. A spill within the first five seconds of meeting each other was not worth the risk. A blind date like this was almost too good to be true.

Perhaps because it was too good to be true.

"Great. Ryan just checked in at the front. I'll bring him back. I'll be your server today," the woman said.

On other blind dates her friend, Taren, set up for her, Suzi didn't feel as surprised as she did in that moment. That's the difference between a somewhat-dateable-maybe-mutual friend date, and a blind date. The latter didn't carry the kind of expectations that commonly accompanied a Taren-built date. It could feel like dating two people at the same time when Suzi knew her friend would be texting for updates.

These blind dates dispensed lately like lottery tickets. And as any good gambler knows, it's best not to bet more than you can afford to lose. In Suzi's case, all she had to lose was the time until she felt like leaving her date with the bill for lunch.

Lunch. Not dinner. Kept the stakes low.

By the look of things, that bill would also be low. Ryan sauntered in with the scenery-chewing ambiance of a wet washcloth hitting the floor.

"Hey, I, uh, I, you're Sarah, right? I'm Ryan," Ryan said as he sat down. He made a fashionable attempt at dressing hobo chic, but it came across as straight hobo. Were there more light behind his eyes, the deadpan in his voice might've carried an ASMR-grade baritone. But there wasn't anything ASMR about the tuba lodged in his throat.

On a normal blind date, Suzi would do both of them a favor and cut it off right there. However, the server who originally notified Suzi about Ryan's arrival was a good enough reason to stay put and find amusement in whatever form it may take.

"No one calls me Sarah after the incident," Suzi said.

"What? An accident? Like, you had one on...on the way here?" Ryan said.

"No, an incident," Suzi said. "It was a joke because of the name thing."

Ryan looked as lost as his vagabond wardrobe suggested. After a beat he said, "Well, I'm sorry about the incident. Are you better now?"

Suzi took an overdue sip of water to hide her reaction. This wasn't merely a blind date. This was a black hole, where no light can escape.

Mercifully, the server arrived to explain the lunch specials.

"I'm in no rush. Take as long as you need to," Suzi said when the server apologized for keeping them waiting without drink menus. "Also, I have some questions about these lunch specials. What, exactly, is an aioli?"

"Do you have an allergy I should know more about?" the server said.

"Actually, there's a lot more about me you should know."

"I'm listening."

Ryan, meanwhile, stared at the wall just to the left behind Suzi's head, apparently in an attempt to find his train of thought.

Suzi reminded the server that they've not yet been introduced by name. When the server said hers, Suzi was struck by how familiar it sounded despite not having met before. The revelation wanted to jostle a memory loose, but it never connected in Suzi's mind.

"So, uh, do you like the specials here?" Ryan said after the server left, negating the need to hold a mirror under his nose to confirm the presence of life.

"I've never eaten here before," Suzi said.

"You asked a lot of questions about the food," Ryan said.

"I did."

"Can I ask you a question, too?"

"Go ahead."

Ryan rolled a sleeve up to reveal a Fitbit. He nodded to the device and said, "Do you know about these things?"

"Yeah. I've heard of them," Suzi said.

"You know how they work, right? Like, I've got 10,000 steps in before lunch," Ryan said.

Suzi wasn't sure if this was a lead up to the actual question or if she's supposed to be impressed. She said, "That's nice."

"About the steps or about the Fitbit?" Ryan said. "Because I haven't even made it to the question part yet."

Ryan's confusion, apparently, was contagious.

"Both, I guess," Suzi said.

"Oh, OK. Lol," Ryan said. He didn't laugh out loud, though, or pronounce the three letters as a single word. Every letter got a beat.

"So what is your question?" Suzi said after several seconds passed.

"OK, so I wear this thing at night when I sleep," Ryan said. "Want to know something weird? It said I get 500 steps during the night."

Suzi wondered if they're at the question yet. She waited for Ryan to go on.

"Do you think it's sleepwalking?" Ryan said. "Or is it even weirder than that?"

"I have no idea," Suzi said.

"Oh. I thought you would know," Ryan said.

"Why?"

"The person who set me up with you said you knew about Fitbits," Ryan said.

That piqued Suzi's interest. She said, "What else did this person mention about me?"

"That you were starting an app for sleepwalkers, and you needed a software developer. Isn't that what we're here to talk about?" Ryan said.

"What? You think this is a job interview?" Suzi said. The table wobbled under the weight of her irritation.

"Well, yeah. I've got two appointments today. One is a job interview. The other one is a blind date that's happening later at...," Ryan said, trailing off. "This is the date one, isn't it?"

Suzi tipped her head to the side. "Yeah. The date one."

Ryan's face melted into a frown as his gaze drooped to his feet. He said, "Do you think there's still a chance?"

"For this date? Seriously?" Suzi said.

"No. I mean the job interview," Ryan said.

Suzi debated whether to empty a bucket of reality into Ryan's ears, and decided it wasn't worth the breath.

"No. There's no chance," Suzi said.

Ryan's surprised face displayed the most emotion of the entire encounter, and perhaps of his entire life. Suzi could almost hear his facial muscles creak from the strain of emoting.

"Yeah, you're probably right," Ryan said. He glanced at his Fitbit. "It was supposed to happen an hour ago anyway."

Suzi wished she had a Fitbit to distract her attention, too. Being unemployed wasn't the right time for gadgets, though, especially with the post-graduation debt load.

The pair eventually ordered lunch after minimal conversation. Ryan went with a BLT, hold the bacon, in a bowl, with croutons instead of sandwich bread and mustard instead of aioli. After insisting that Ryan agree to pay for the meal, Suzi ordered the most expensive plate on the menu. It'd be her only substantial meal of the day. The buzz from the pop of nutrition would deliver her safely into tomorrow.

"I don't read," Ryan said out of nowhere. "Books are boring."

"Watch it. You're talking to an English major here," Suzi said.

"You already speak English. Why would you get a degree in it? Seems like a waste of money," Ryan said.

While that might be true as far as the job market went, Suzi grew more irritated with Taren than Ryan. Why did Taren think this was a good match for a blind date in the first place? Or was this Taren's way of buying Suzi lunch? Pity can come disguised in many forms.

"Can I ask you something?" Suzi said. She didn't wait for a reply. "Who set you up on this date?"

"I don't know what you mean," Ryan said.

Suzi spelt it out like talking to a child or a dog. She said, "Who told you, Ryan, to come meet me, Suzi, here at this restaurant?"

"For the job interview? This isn't the job interview, though," Ryan said.

Suzi restrained the urge to knock on his skull and listen for the echo.

"No. For this date," Suzi said.

"It's a long story," Ryan said, although Suzi wondered whether he possessed the ability to recall such a thing as a long story.

"I hope you're hungry," the server said. She set the food down on the table. "Can I get you anything else?"

"It looks good. Thanks," Ryan said.

Except Suzi knew Ryan's food didn't look good. A cockroach clung to one of the croutons like a life raft atop a sea of reinterpreted BLT.

"Everything looks...," Suzi started to say before snaring a better view of the server's eyes. "Excellent. Just excellent."

"Then I'll leave you two to it for now," the server said through a smile that rung a little too genuine for such a bullshit place as that restaurant.

Suzi scanned her food for any signs of 'roaches, turning up nothing. She looked back to Ryan's plate. The cockroach was gone. So was the crouton.

Ryan washed his bite down with a glass of water.

"I hate to break it to you, but there was a cockroach on that crouton," Suzi said.

Ryan shoveled in another mouthful of food. "So?"

"That doesn't bother you?" Suzi said.

"No," Ryan said. "People eat bugs now all the time. It's in. Like, as a sustainable protein. It's good for the planet and all that shit."

Suzi lost her appetite with every loud chomp that dribbled out of Ryan's mouth. She stabbed at the food on her plate with a fork. "Crickets," she said. "People in the States, they're eating crickets now. Not cockroaches."

"Nah. They eat crickets and they eat cockroaches," Ryan said. "Besides, a bug is a bug. I guess I'm just open-minded like that. Everyone's doing it now."

"I've never tried either," Suzi said.

"You're missing out."

"Am I?"

"Big time. Get this: I use metal straws sometimes. That's a thing now, too," Ryan said.

"Really?"

"Yeah. It's also for the planet. Can't believe you haven't heard of that before."

"Oh," Suzi said.

Indeed, Suzi has heard of metal straws before. It stung as a sore subject, but not for the reason some people might think. The specter of unemployment and debt obligations compounded to keep her budget tight. Her friends from university, most more fortunate, gave her grief about using plastic straws from the bar when they went out together. They each carried a metal alternative, complete with a case and specialized cleaning tools.

Rather than explain why she wasn't able to spend a week's worth of groceries for a metal straw kit, she took the environmental argument to the next level. Why waste resources making straws at all? Drink directly from the cup instead.

Devoid of the reinforcement of a celebrity marketing campaign, Suzi's argument didn't always stick with her friends. The point, she was informed, is to send a message with one's money. But what was a person to do without the money with which to send the message?

Suzi's thoughts wandered while she ate, putting that English degree to use. She considered the crickets off in the distance outside her window each night. Somehow, in all that cacophony, two crickets found each other, chirping and sawing back and forth. The timeless sound, as old and as new as each night, presented a comfort within its familiarity; a guarantee that dawn would come just as surely as the crickets chirped into borrowed evening breezes.

Crickets made an appearance at the lunch, too, in the form of silence until the server returned to clear the plates.

It took three tries before Ryan could find a payment app on his phone compatible with the restaurant's checkout system. This, Ryan explained, was why the server's tip was so low.

And that, Suzi explained to the server after Ryan left, was the reason for a cash tip folded beneath an empty, straw-free glass of water on the table. Suzi could ill-afford the tip, but sometimes money was only money. And bugs were bugs. And crickets were crickets.

"Sorry your date didn't work out," the server said. Again the familiarity rang in Suzi's ears, especially in the way the server's voice handled that first word.

"It happens. Everything always works out in the end, though, right?" Suzi said.

The two paused.

"Do you want a redo?" the server said.

"Yeah. I'd like that," Suzi said, unable to hide the grin. "I'd like that a lot."

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AUTHOR'S NOTE

This one-shot is part of the 31 Blind Dates anthology from more than two dozen Wattpad writers including members of the Stars program, published authors, Ambassadors and Wattys winners.

If you want to start at the beginning, go to the profile of @rskovach. You will find the next story in the collection on the profile of Alecc0. Just look for this sticker: